Field Estimating
Capture an estimate on-site with your voice. AI does the rest.
Estimates & Projects
The Jobs > Estimates / Projects section provides a full estimation and project management workflow.
Employee Workflow:
- From the home screen, tap Job Estimate to start a new estimate.
- Select an existing job or create a new one on the spot (with address and GPS geocoding).
- Optionally take photos of the job site, they are attached to the job for admin review.
- Add a title and any notes describing the scope of work.
- Optionally record a voice memo, the system will transcribe it automatically.
- Submit the estimate. Employees can view and edit their estimates from View Estimates.
Admin Estimate List:
- Navigate to Jobs > Estimates / Projects to see all estimates.
- Search by transcription content, job name, or estimate number.
- Table shows estimate number, job, customer, date, status, value, costs, collected, and margin.
- Close Rates Card: Dashboard card showing estimate close rates, how many estimates convert to accepted projects.
Estimate Detail (Admin):
- Customer Info: Link to a customer record or enter customer name, phone, email, and a customer-facing message. When a customer is selected, their contact info auto-populates.
- Lead Source: Track where this estimate came from (Google Ads, Referral, etc.).
- Estimate Number: Assign a unique estimate number for your records. Numbers are validated for uniqueness within the company.
- Approval Status: Track the estimate through five stages: Pending, Accepted, In Progress, Completed, or Declined. Changing status from Pending to Accepted promotes the estimate to a "Project." Declined estimates are excluded from pipeline calculations.
- Completion %: Set the percentage of work completed. This drives earned revenue recognition and WIP calculations across the CFO Dashboard.
- Financial Fields: Enter estimate value, estimated materials and labor costs, estimated labor hours, actual materials cost, actual collected payments, and sales tax rate.
- Line Items: Build a detailed line-item breakdown with description, quantity, unit price, taxable flag, and calculated totals. Use the Products & Services dropdown to quickly add pre-priced items. Save new items back to the library with "Save as Product."
- AI Line Item Extraction: Record a voice memo or upload photos and let AI extract line items automatically, matching against your Products & Services catalog for consistent pricing.
- Admin Voice Recording: Record voice memos directly from the admin estimate detail page for notes and scope documentation.
- Job Tasks: Create and manage a task checklist for the job. Tasks can be toggled active/inactive and appear in reports.
- Transcription & Notes: View and edit the AI-transcribed voice memo and add internal notes.
- Job Photos: View all photos attached to the job directly from the estimate detail page.
- Job Reassignment: Move an estimate to a different job if needed.
Reports:
- Financial Report PDF: Internal report with all estimate details, job photos, tasks, and financial data.
- Financial Report Excel: Two-tab spreadsheet, Tab 1: Financial Summary with estimated vs. WIP vs. actual costs and variance analysis. Tab 2: Estimate Details with line items, totals, transcription, notes, and tasks.
- Scope of Work PDF: Job scope document with line items and company branding. Can be sent directly to the job's file folder using the "Send to Job Folder" button.
- Client Estimate PDF: Clean, client-facing estimate document with line items, totals, and sales tax.
Estimate Approval
Send estimates to customers for digital approval with optional deposit collection.
- Generate Approval Link: From the Estimate Detail page, click Generate Approval Link to create a unique, secure URL for the customer.
- Email to Customer: Click Send via Server (PDF attached) to email the customer directly through your company email, with the client-facing PDF attached and a button linking to the approval page. The wording comes from your Communication Templates and you can tweak the subject/body for that one send. Two fallbacks are also available, Open in Mail Client (drafts it in your own mail app) and Share PDF via Email (your phone's share sheet).
- Customer Experience: The customer sees a professional estimate page with line items, totals, your company branding (in your chosen brand color), and legal terms. They type their full name to accept, this creates a legally binding signature.
- Legal Protections: The system captures a content hash (snapshot of the estimate at approval time), the typed name as a digital signature, timestamp, and IP address. The accepted estimate cannot be modified after approval without generating a new link.
- Deposit Collection: If Stripe is connected, configure a deposit requirement (percentage or fixed amount). The customer is redirected to Stripe Checkout to pay the deposit immediately after approving.
- Auto-Status Update: When the customer approves, the estimate status automatically changes to "Accepted" and notifications are sent to employees with estimate access.
- Regenerate Link: If you update the estimate after generating a link, regenerate the approval link to send the updated version.
- Customer-Facing Wording: The approval email, the approval page intro, and the "Accept" button text all come from your Communication Templates, so you control exactly how it reads.
- Hide Line-Item Pricing: You can present a single total instead of itemized prices on the customer-facing estimate when you'd rather not break out every line.
Change Orders
A change order captures extra work added after a project is already underway, while keeping it cleanly linked to the original job and estimate.
- Create: On an accepted or in-progress estimate, click + Change Order. The system creates a new linked estimate titled "Change Order for [estimate #]" that inherits the original's job, customer, contact details, and business unit, and starts with a blank line-item list for you to fill in.
- Link back: The change-order estimate shows a banner linking to its parent, so the relationship is always visible.
- Approve & bill: A change order follows the normal flow, add line items, send it for approval (with its own deposit if you want), and create an invoice from it just like any other estimate.
Products & Services
Navigate to Setup Items > Products & Services to manage a reusable pricing library for estimates and invoices.
- Products and services are pre-priced line items you can add to estimates with one click instead of entering descriptions and prices from scratch each time.
- Item Type: Each item is a Product, a Service, or a Subcontractor. Subcontractor items track outside-labor costs separately from your own materials and labor, they flow into a dedicated subcontractor cost line on job costing and the CFO Dashboard, and are treated as non-labor cost in the Cash Flow Forecast.
- Add Item: Choose the type, then enter a name, unit price, and sort order.
- Edit: Click Edit to update the name, price, or sort order inline.
- Activate / Deactivate: Deactivated items are hidden from the estimate line item dropdown.
- Save from Estimate: When building an estimate, you can save any line item back to this library for future reuse using the "Save as Product" button.
- QBO Item Import: Pull products and services from QuickBooks Online and auto-match them. See QuickBooks Online.
- AI Matching: When AI extracts line items from an estimate, it automatically matches them against your Products & Services library for consistent pricing.
